Thursday, April 10, 2008

The 3 Bounce Ball Part 4: Spacing and Motion Arcs

Time to adjust the SPACING and motion arcs. We'll do this in the Graph Editor.

1. Window > Animation > Graph Editor.

2. Make sure the ball is selected and that the move tool (W) is active. If the ball's not selected, the graph editor will be blank. If the move tool isn't active, nothing will work right in the Graph Editor. Hit those lovely yellow and blue zoom buttons so you can actually see what you're working on.

3. Notice how the curve is spikey and sharp. That's what linear tangents do for you. Let's bend 'em. Select the curve. This selects all of the points and tangents on the curve. Right click the curve and select Tangents > Spline.

4. Maya makes you go through some colorful steps in order to edit your curve the way you want to.
Break the tangents
Weight the tangents
Free the tangent weights (and your mind will follow).Let's add squash and stretch. To do this, we'll be adding scale keys.

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